Hot Toys, we need to talk. For the most part, I appreciate all the effort put into the figures created by the talented team working for the company. The way Hot Toys is able to recreate the heroes and villains of cinema's most exciting characters must rely on some sort of ancient magic. Somewhere along the line these last few months, the magic well must have started drying up. Where costumes and accessories are still delightfully detailed, the once impeccable likenesses have started failing the characters they're modeled after. That's never been more apparent than the newest announcement, the Captain America: Civil War Ant-Man.

Paul Rudd is Ant-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, he's only had one movie compared the rest of the Earth-bound heroes, but it's still pretty hard not to know what he looks like. Even Hot Toys knows what he looks like because they already have an Ant-Man figure from his solo movie out right now that has a very solid Paul Rudd likeness. Somewhere between that figure's creation and today's announcement of a new, updated version for Civil War, Hot Toys must've gotten the casting sheets wrong. That's the only excuse I can think of for putting such a good Ben Affleck head on Ant-Man's body.

We've seen Hot Toys figures as of late suffer from some slight likeness issues, and because the rest of the package is so damn impressive, there's a little leeway afforded to the inaccuracies. This Ant-Man brings those small variances a whole new level of head-scratching confusion. It's confounding that Hot Toys could put out an Ant-Man figure that looks so little like the Ant-Man it already made. The Paul Rudd likeness on the first Ant-Man (which should be in the US this month) is really great. The only issue was the face was only visible inside the helmet. How they didn't just take that and then sculpt the rest of head around the portrait is baffling. You cannot look at that head and see Paul Rudd. You can see Ben Affleck. You can even see a bit of young George Clooney. Definitely not the MCU Scott Lang though.

The rest of this figure is great. You get a much better sense of the new costume that you could from the SH FIguarts version, and by God, it even looks like there's ankle articulation in those boots. That's something collectors have been begging for, and now Hot Toys is finally delivering it... on a figure that misses the mark in the most important area completely. There's still plenty of time between today and this figure's eventual release to work out the kinks, but this is as spectacular a swing and miss as you can have when it comes to $225 action figures.

No shipping or confirmed pricing details are available as of yet, but when Sideshow Collectibles has more information, we'll update this post.

Update: You can now pre-order Ant-Man for $234.99. He's expected to arrive during Q4 this year.

 

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